


The Swanfire Wedding Plan, By Snow White

by Of_Princes_and_Savages



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Baelfire | Neal Cassidy Lives, F/M, Introducing Snow the Wedding Planner, Merrily departing from canon post-Neverland, Wedding Planning, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 13:31:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10387731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Of_Princes_and_Savages/pseuds/Of_Princes_and_Savages
Summary: After Neverland, Emma and Bae talk. And talk. And date. And then they decided to get married...and her mother is more than ready.





	

**Author's Note:**

> LETS GO AHEAD AND CLOSE OUR EYES AND PRETEND PETER PAN DIDN'T BODY-SWAP WITH HENRY SO NEVERLAND WAS SETTLED NEATLY, AND HOOK BOOKED IT BACK HOME BECAUSE EMMA DID TALK TO NEAL AND DIDN'T HAVE TO SETTLE FOR A LEATHER-CLAD CASE OF ALCOHOL ABUSE AND LORD KNOWS WHAT POX. READY? OKAY.
> 
> (Why yes, I am bitter. As you were.)

It started with talking in that one booth at Granny's.

Emma had other stuff going on at the time: Reordering the town after a heap of chaos, getting to know her parents, (god that was a strange thought,) finding good places to put the recovered Lost Boys, (something she and Neal did collaborate on, going through a couple of shitty group homes themselves,) tri-parenting with Regina to figure out a stable arrangement for Henry, (arguably the easiest, that one, since Neal didn't have an extra bed in his room at Granny's and always brought him back after a day out to his respective mother's house for the night,) and just learning to _breathe_ again, mainly.

 _Phew_...

But then, Granny had started cutting Neal's room and board payments and dropping not-so-subtle hints that he was just wasting his money, why didn't he find somewhere to live permanently?

And while Emma had been sorting out the town and her family, Neal had been working on his own. He was wary of Belle at first since he'd only known Lacey, but warmed up to her quickly. Getting back on track with his dad took a bit longer, but was stable enough that Neal had taken him up on a list of apartments available and rented one.

Neal didn't leave Storybrooke.

And they still talked. And talked. And talked.

Emma couldn't tell you the moment when she fell back in love with Neal completely, wholly, and without fear, but it had happened just under a year of returning from Neverland. She and Neal had been sitting on his apartment's sofa with a pizza slice each, he looked over at her, and asked, "Are we dating now?"

Emma swallowed her pepperoni pizza. "I...guess. Yeah. We are. Huh."

"Huh. So...what do you think about keeping on dating?"

"I'm comfortable with that." she smiled, and stole a slightly-greasy, pizza-flavored kiss.

And they dated. More came with dating than talking did, but that had been easy enough in time, too. When baby Leopold came into the loft apartment Emma had been sharing with her parents, she and Henry started spending more time at Neal's apartment, and nothing was weird since they had two bedrooms. No prizes for guessing who Emma's "roommate" was.

Henry still went back and forth from Regina's house. Emma spent more time at Neal's place. Until it became _their_ place. And about two years after Neverland, Emma and Neal had been climbing into the yellow bug, and he looked at her.

"What?"

"Can I ask you a question and you promise not to flip like a cat scared by a toaster?"

"That's weirdly specific but okay..."

"How do you feel about marriage?"

Emma blinked. "I...feel...unsure. Why do you ask?"

Neal smiled that damned smile of his, the one with the dimples and the twinkly eyes. "I dunno. Just something I think about sometimes."

Well, once the subject was brought up, Emma could feel it poking at her like a sharp stick. It was maybe a week before, over breakfast when Henry was at Regina's house, Emma just blurted out:

"Okay, so, _why_ do you think about marriage?"

Neal had a mouthful of Frosted Flakes preventing him from answering at first, but the talking began again.

He thought about marriage because they lived together, they had Henry, and he liked the idea of being a family. A wedding wasn't essential to that, he pointed out, since his parents had been married and miserable, but hers were the pinnacle of True freaking Love. Emma had never given much thought at all to marriage herself, she'd always been too busy trying to protect herself. But if she were going to be married, she supposed she'd could do worse than marrying her best friend.

"I want to keep my name though."

Neal grinned. "Sure. I mean, _Cassidy_ is kind of a fake last name anyway. You don't look much like Emma Stiltskin."

"Your real last name is Stiltskin?"

"Nah, I'm just messing with ya, _Swan_."

"Hmph. Is that your proposal then?"

"Are..." Neal faltered. "Are you saying yes?"

"Are you asking?" Emma smiled.

Yes, he was, and yes, she accepted.

It was very simple and lowkey as far as Emma thought proposals went. She was happy with it even though she didn't have a large diamond ring to show off like Ashley Herman, nee Boyd, had gotten, or any ring at all really. She was always paranoid about losing rings anyway, it wouldn't be a great loss.

And then they told the parents...

Since Emma and Neal had been dating, at some point, Snow and Belle thought it would be a _lovely_ idea to get everybody together for dinner once a month or so. That meant Emma's parents, little Leo, Henry and Regina, Neal, Belle and Gold were all in the same room together. It was less hazardous than one might think, but still a bit more dicey than your average blended family dinner.

The plan had been to tell their parents one (or in Emma's case, _two_ ,) at a time. That plan flew out the window when Snow caught them talking about it in a hallway at Gold's house, (he had the largest house, the most room for dinner parties,) and squealed. Literally _squealed_ , and jumped Emma with a hug while bouncing on her toes.

The squeal had alerted the rest of the family. Or maybe it was Snow's giddy chattering: "Oh I'm so happy for you! Both of you! Oh my-Do you have a ring? Let me see? No ring? Now that doesn't bother me,-Charming and I said our vows the first time in front of dry Lake Nostros, our wedding was a celebration for the kingdom,-but Neal your father owns a pawnshop! Even Grumpy got a ring when he was planning to propose to Nova!"

"Who's Nova?" Neal asked.

"Wait, I thought you said that ring was stolen, and that's why you met in prison?" David frowned, bouncing Leopold in his arms. "That's not a very good comparison."

"Uh, it is a pawnshop," Regina said.

"You don't use the pawnshop in the same town you stole in, dearie." Gold snorted, Belle placing a quiet hand on his arm.

"You're getting married?" Henry grinned from ear to ear. "Awesome! Can I be the best man, Dad?"

"Oh that's a wonderful idea Henry!" Snow beamed. "Do you have a suit? You're gonna need a suit, ooh! We need to choose your wedding colors..."

After that, Neal and Emma's original plan to just sign a certificate at the courthouse got brushed aside by Hurricane Snow.

By far the most shocking thing wasn't that her mother dragged her from shop to shop. Because she didn't. She just dragged Emma into the loft and pulled out a fat pink folder that looked like something she kept her graded papers in, with color-coded tabs marked "DRESS", "FLOWERS", "VENUE", "CAKE DESIGN" and the like.

"Uh, Mom?" Emma asked, looking up from a newspaper clipping about chignons. It sounded like pastry, and yet, it was a hairstyle. "How long have you been planning a wedding for me?"

"Hmm? Oh. Not that long, really," Snow waved her hand dismissively, plucking out things from the _Venue_ section. "Just an article here, a form there. Just in case. You know, in my kingdom back home, it's traditional for the mother of the bride or her closest female relative to plan the wedding. Er, granted in my case that wasn't much of an option, but Granny and Red were a big help. Now what size wedding were you thinking? Something small like a backyard wedding, or should we rent a space?"

Emma was certain that Regina started coming around to those wedding planning sessions just to laugh at her, but at least she helped to steer Snow away from an overly elaborate white wedding with a poofy wedding dress.

("Have you _seen_ the pictures in Henry's book of Snow's dress? Feathers everywhere, her hair looked like a place birds would roost in-No, don't." Regina shook her head firmly when Emma escaped one afternoon. "Let her dictate what flowers go on the tables, but for your sake, choose your own dress.")

Neal was slightly better off. Probably because he just had to wear a suit, (lucky bastard and his being able to _wear pants_ to their wedding,) but his father kept asking if he would be needing a bigger place to live. Neal didn't think it was a request for grandchildren, per se, more like fatherly concern/hovering. The one thing Gold did that embarrassed Neal was he'd not-so-subtly slipped a ring box into Neal's pocket as a way of passively saying, "This one."

"He used to do stuff like that when I was a kid," Neal laughed, shaking the box he discovered in his pocket. "Stuff like nuts or berries or little balls of string. I'll take it back-"

"Well lemme see what it looks like first."

"Seriously?"

"Hey, your dad wears suits that cost more than our car, and is on the track to marrying a girl that dresses like a supermodel. He has good taste, I want to see what he picked."

It was a pretty ring. Probably from the Enchanted Forest, because it didn't look remotely modern. A band of polished gold, engraved with swirling runes Neal said he dimly recognized from the Frontlands as a child. He thought the gist of it was "love" and "together" and "equal parts", and that was good enough for Emma.

Well done, Gold, well done.

Thanks to Snow's slightly creepy wedding planner folder, she had the whole event put together in the park in under a month. Flowers were arranged and delivered, (white roses, greenery, and lavender,) the cake selected, (vanilla buttercream, lemon cake, three layers and yellow gum-paste flowers artfully stuck into the silver-blue fondant,) and Archie was officiating.

It had really been amazing to watch, honestly.

Neal wore a suit, (not a tux,) while standing there at the gazebo altar, Henry was his best man and looking distinctively smug about it. He'd already seen Emma's dress though, Neal hadn't. That much was obvious in how he did this double take when she started making her way down the "aisle" which was really just a white carpet rolled out over the grass, but who was she to argue?

The dress was the one thing Emma had to stand firm on against her mother. The big princess ballgown was for some girls, but not Emma. Although someone had pointed out the custom of a white wedding dress was more a show of wealth than a symbol of purity or whatever, the reason Emma picked periwinkle was because she liked the color of it. (Snow had to say it was _periwinkle_ , Emma kept calling it _blue_.) [It was a satiny fabric](http://s.ecrater.com/stores/255016/4fb459071cb87_255016b.jpg), strapless, the tips of her white heels just peeking under the hem when she walked. It would have been a smooth A-line drop down to her ankles, except for the pleats in the side where a sort of rose was created from twists in the material. Her hair was down and curled, Regina had to take over doing her makeup when Snow started sniffling but didn't paint her up like the Evil Queen, and Emma felt pretty good.

That double take was totally worth the trouble, anyway.

Emma's mother started crying again part way through the ceremony, but she was quiet about it. The weird part was _Gold_ getting teary-eyed, but Emma tried to ignore that.

Oh god. Rumpelstiltskin was her father-in-law now.

That almost made Emma miss her turn to say "I do". Almost, but not quite.

She wouldn't miss it for the world when Neal grinned back at her, and Archie pronounced them husband and wife and: _"You may now kiss the bride."_

Neal did.

And it was perfect, even if they got pelted with rice on the trek back down the aisle. Meh. A little uncooked rice was really the least problematic thing she and Neal had faced together, they'd live.

Maybe even happily ever after.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm working on a Swan Queen version. I've never written Swan Queen, so it's taking some time. But it will be done!


End file.
